LUIS MONTI 1934

Argentina were winning 2-1 and cruising at half-time of the 1930 World Cup Final, yet their totemic midfielder Luis Monti was in tears.

“If you win,” two shady-looking characters had told him as he left the pitch, “we will kill your mother and your sister.”

Monti faded during the second half – some say because of a thigh injury, not the death threats – and Uruguay recovered to triumph 4-2. Four years on, as a Juventus player who had been granted immediate Italian citizenship, Monti lined up for the Azzurri in the final against Czechoslovakia.

The hosts’ 2-1 win brought Monti untold fame. The only footballer to appear in two World Cup finals for different nations said: “After that match, by the decision of Il Duce [Mussolini], we were all allowed to ask for whatever we wanted: cars, houses, money, jewels, women...”

He later recalled of his differing World Cup final experiences: “In Uruguay they’d have killed me if we won, and in Italy they’d have killed me if I lost.”